The Tanker War Escalates

I hadn't considered what the Gulf Arabs would do in reaction to some sort of non nuclear Iranian-Soviet war. I mean it's a tough question. The Gulf Arab monarchies utterly despise Shias and especially the militantly Shia Iranian government. On the other hand they also are not exactly fond of the Soviets and communism. And the prospect of facing a hundred divisions of the Soviet army from across the gulf would be deeply deeply unsettling to the Saudis and co. I don't think they'd directly intervene (not that their militaries are worth half a damn. Especially at the time they were terrible quality.) but I could see them covertly partnering with the US to illicitly arm and fund (to some extent at least) the Iranians to prevent a total collapse.
That sounds reasonable.

That being said if necessary I suspect they would commit at least token forces to assist the U.S. in occupying certain coastal areas to preclude the Soviets from occupying them. I have my doubts the U.S. would have wanted to put their own boots on the ground without at least some regional support. IMHO the U.S. would want at least the appearance of acting with the support of some other nations in the region vs acting on their own.

I suspect the U.S. would also be under pressure to deploy at least token ground forces to Kuwait and perhaps Iraq so there might be a quid pro quo to be had. I doubt Iraq would be invited to put boots on the ground in Iran.

I suspect pragmatic considerations about keeping their oil revenue flowing and preventing further Soviet enchroachment would prompt at least some of the Gulf states to assist the U.S.

Given the realities of the Cold War I also don't see the U.S. deploying much more than a "trip wire force" of ground troops to the region. Some of the other NATO nations might also help out (maybe some elements of the ACE mobile force get deployed, but I doubt this would be considered a NATO mission?). I suspect at least some NATO nations would want the Soviets to be under no illusions that seizing the gulf coast would have severe consequences.
 
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This is a thread I will be watching; I don't know enough about the Tanker War,
a very good book on the TW is ""America's First Clash with Iran" by Lee Allen Zatarain. It goes into pretty good detail about the forces the US kept in the Gulf during the war, and the operations the USN conducted. It's an interesting read.
 
one simple thing that could escalate the war.... Iran mass firing Silkworm missiles at USN ships. Reagan had several times threatened Iran with retaliatory strikes on Iran itself is they fired Silkworms at our ships. However.... neither Reagan nor the Pentagon really wanted to extend the war that far. The book I noted above claims that the Iranians actually did fire a handful of them on a couple of occasions, but it was under the radar enough to deny it happened. But if Iran had fired a lot of Silkworms over several days, to the point where it couldn't avoid notice by the world at large, then the US has little choice but to launch strikes against Silkworm sites....
 
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